enteenth century. In a technical and very complete
book, _L'Art de la Lingerie_, published in 1771, women's drawers
are not even mentioned, and Mercier (_Tableau de Paris_, 1783,
vol. vii, p. 54) says that, except actresses, Parisian women do
not wear drawers. Even by ballet dancers and actresses on the
stage, they were not invariably worn. Camargo, the famous dancer,
who first shortened the skirt in dancing, early in the eighteenth
century, always observed great decorum, never showing the leg
above the knee; when appealed to as to whether she wore drawers,
she replied that she could not possibly appear without such a
"precaution." But they were not necessarily worn by dancers, and
in 1727 a young _ballerina_, having had her skirt accidentally
torn away by a piece of stage machinery, the police issued an
order that in future no actress or dancer should appear on the
stage without drawers; this regulation does not appear, however,
to have been long strictly maintained, though Schulz (_Ueber
Paris und die Pariser_, p. 145) refers to it as in force in 1791.
(The obscure origin and history of feminine drawers have been
discussed from time to time in the _Intermediaire des Chercheurs
et Curieux_, especially vols. xxv, lii, and liii.)

Prof. Irving Rosse, of Washington, refers to "New England
prudishness," and "the colossal modesty of some New York
policemen, who in certain cases want to give written, rather than
oral testimony." He adds: "I have known this sentiment carried to
such an extent in a Massachusetts small town, that a shop-keeper
was obliged to drape a small, but innocent, statuette displayed
in his window." (Irving Rosse, _Virginia Medical Monthly_,
October, 1892.) I am told that popular feeling in South Africa
would not permit the exhibition of the nude in the Art
Collections of Cape Town. Even in Italy, nude statues are
disfigured by the addition of tin fig-leaves, and sporadic
manifestations of horror at the presence of nude statues, even
when of most classic type, are liable to occur in all parts of
Europe, including France and Germany. (Examples of this are
recorded from time to time in _Sexual-reform_, published as an
appendix to _Geschlecht und Gesellschaft_.)

Some years ago, (1898), it was stated that the Philadelphia
_Ladies' Home Journal_ had decided to a